microRevolt reBlog2015-05-27T17:53:29Ztag:microrevolt.org,2015:/reblog//1Movable TypeCopyright (c) 2015, cat women's status and visibility in the art worldcat2015-05-27T17:53:29Z2015-05-27T17:39:57Ztag:microrevolt.org,2015:/reblog//1.8192015-05-27T17:39:57ZIn 2009 I went to a panel as part of the She Will Always Be Younger Than Us exhibit at the Textile Museum in Toronto that Allyson Mitchell curated. Maura Reilly gave a sobering talk about women's representation in the...
In 2009 I went to a panel as part of the She Will Always Be Younger Than Us exhibit at the Textile Museum in Toronto that Allyson Mitchell curated. Maura Reilly gave a sobering talk about women's representation in the art world. This article out in ARTnews yesterday has updates.

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Tonight: Campus rape “knit-in”cat2015-05-27T17:39:06Z2015-05-27T17:30:35Ztag:microrevolt.org,2015:/reblog//1.8182015-05-27T17:30:35Z Join us for our inaugural DIY knit-in feminist circle, in support of feminist practice to raise awareness about campus rape issues. We will be joined by BHQFU in a call to take action to end gender-based violence and rape...

Join us for our inaugural DIY knit-in feminist circle, in support of feminist practice to raise awareness about campus rape issues. We will be joined by BHQFU in a call to take action to end gender-based violence and rape culture at our schools. Pattern is available for download: gorilla balaclavas activated to inform, share and engage community networks of support! We encourage you to go forth, organize your own event – Speak Up! All knitting experience levels welcome. // Alla Horska was a Ukrainian Monumentalist painter and a Shistdesyatnyky, a group of literati, artists and scholars of the 1960s in Ukraine.

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Nike and TPPcat2015-05-07T22:56:24Z2015-05-07T22:52:18Ztag:microrevolt.org,2015:/reblog//1.8172015-05-07T22:52:18ZPresident Obama is scheduled to appear at the Nike company headquarters in Oregon tomorrow to promote the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) -- a multinational agreement focused on trade between the U.S. and 11 other countries. Meanwhile, Nike’s management is putting pressure...
President Obama is scheduled to appear at the Nike company headquarters in Oregon tomorrow to promote the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) -- a multinational agreement focused on trade between the U.S. and 11 other countries. Meanwhile, Nike’s management is putting pressure on its own employees to promote the agreement as well. In a memo sent to some employees this March, Nike’s General Counsel said: “We need to hear your voice as a Nike employee on this issue” and pushed employees to contact their members of Congress to approve the deal.

Among other concerns, many are worried that an easing of trade restrictions without strong measures to ensure workers’ rights are protected could exacerbate a race to the bottom where companies have even more incentive to source from factories with the worst wages and conditions.

Nike has a clear interest in this trade deal. Less than 1 percent of the more than 1 million workers who made the products that earned Nike $27.8 billion in revenue in 2014 were U.S. workers. Last year, one-third of Nike’s remaining 13,922 American production workers were cut. It has been reported that one-third of the supply chain workers who produce for Nike are in Vietnam -- a nation that would be part of the TPP. Vietnam bans independent unions, uses child and forced labor and pays minimum wages of less than 60 cents an hour.

Nike took a lot of heat from anti-sweatshop activists and Vietnamese unions for poor factory conditions in the 1990s. While some conditions have improved since that time, wages in apparel and shoe production in Vietnam are still extremely low. TPP would not require companies like Nike to pay the workers who make their sneakers a living wage.

It is unfair to pressure employees to lobby on behalf of the company’s desire to outsource production to the lowest wage workers in the world. Employees should be able to make up their own minds and speak their opinions without the company they work for telling them what to do. Nike should stop telling its workers what to believe and how to express their opinions -- click here to sign [ILRF] petition.

In solidarity,
Liana Foxvog
International Labor Rights Forum

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PS. For more on ILRF's perspectives on Fast Track and the TPP, please read Eric Gottwald's blog posted today, "The TPP's dirty labor laundry."]]>
May Daycat2015-05-02T19:41:32Z2015-05-01T19:30:16Ztag:microrevolt.org,2015:/reblog//1.8162015-05-01T19:30:16Z poster image: Josh MacPhee post via Interference Archive In celebration of May Day, [Interference Archive] would like to share with you an original essay by Martin Lucas about the Film and Photo League, a small group of filmmakers who...

poster image: Josh MacPhee
post via Interference Archive

In celebration of May Day, [Interference Archive] would like to share with you an original essay by Martin Lucas about the Film and Photo League, a small group of filmmakers who were the cultural arm of the Workers International Relief, which gave support to workers on strike.

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Remembering Rana Plazacat2015-05-02T19:29:09Z2015-04-24T19:23:18Ztag:microrevolt.org,2015:/reblog//1.8152015-04-24T19:23:18Z JUDY GEARHART, INTERNATIONAL LABOR RIGHTS FORUM Today I revisited the Rana Plaza factory site where the eight-story building collapsed two years ago, horrifically killing 1,138 workers and seriously injuring more than 2,500 others. The site has not changed much...

JUDY GEARHART, INTERNATIONAL LABOR RIGHTS FORUM

Today I revisited the Rana Plaza factory site where the eight-story building collapsed two years ago, horrifically killing 1,138 workers and seriously injuring more than 2,500 others. The site has not changed much since I came here in 2013, a month after the collapse. You can still find spools of thread, fabric, the occasional lost scarf or shoe, and remnants of the Joe Fresh jeans, which were being produced for JC Penney and Loblaw’s at the time. Most of the building has been demolished, but the rubble remains. In the center, a rain puddle has become a pond with an unnatural green hue and algae growing around the edges. continue reading

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Visiting Artist Lecture at Cleveland Institute for Artcat2015-05-02T19:22:53Z2015-03-27T14:18:41Ztag:microrevolt.org,2015:/reblog//1.8142015-03-27T14:18:41Z12:15PM - 1:30PM George Gund Building Aitken Auditorium Bickford visiting artist Cat Mazza will speak about her art practice, which combines digital media with traditional needlecraft to explore the relationships between textiles, technology, and labor. We will consider the political...
12:15PM - 1:30PM
George Gund Building
Aitken Auditorium

Bickford visiting artist Cat Mazza will speak about her art practice, which combines digital media with traditional needlecraft to explore the relationships between textiles, technology, and labor. We will consider the political potential of craft and technology. Animation, textiles, and custom software will be screened and demonstrated. more

BANGKOK, Thailand — No one expects to find paradise inside a Cambodian sweatshop.
But a new Human Rights Watch report reveals that conditions at the poor nation’s garment factories aren’t merely bad. They’re often criminally abusive.

Americans have reason to cringe over the sad conditions forced on Cambodian clothing makers. The United States is the top destination for “Made in Cambodia” clothes. Major brands such as Gap, Marks & Spencer and Adidas all rely on Cambodians to stitch their clothing.

Outlets such as H&M can sell hoodies for as little as $25 because Cambodian women (almost all the workers are women) will sew for roughly 50 cents per hour.

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It Narratives: The Movement of Objectscat2014-09-14T22:29:42Z2014-09-14T22:18:32Ztag:microrevolt.org,2014:/reblog//1.8112014-09-14T22:18:32Z Franklin Street Works presents It Narratives: The Movement of Objects as Information, an exhibition featuring artists’ projects that engage the postal system and its intersections with digital communications media. The artists in It Narratives find forms for everyday experiences...

Franklin Street Works presents It Narratives: The Movement of Objects as Information, an exhibition featuring artists’ projects that engage the postal system and its intersections with digital communications media. The artists in It Narratives find forms for everyday experiences of distance and time by reflecting on the way objects move through information networks. The exhibition is curated by New York-based guest curators Brian Droitcour and Zanna Gilbert and will be on view from September 6 – November 9, 2014, with a free, public reception on Saturday, September 13 from 5:00 – 8:00 pm.

With areas of expertise in mail art (Gilbert) and Internet art (Droitcour), the curators take into consideration how Internet technology and digital forms of commerce have changed the way artists use the postal system to make work. Mail art emerged in the late 1960s as a collective, networked medium. It allowed artists to circulate and exchange works and ideas in a sphere uncontrolled by curators, institutions, the art market, or state censorship. Today, mail is employed less frequently as an artistic medium, in keeping with an overall shift in how information is experienced and exchanged. News and greetings from friends and family have migrated from the postal system to the faster networks of email and social media, yet “snail mail” has not become obsolete. Sending objects over great distances is part of online commerce. Print-on-demand services that allow users to design their own T-shirts, books, or mugs with a few clicks of a mouse connect Internet browsing and data input to receiving objects by mail and handling them in everyday life.

It Narratives: The Movement of Objects as Information takes its title from a prose genre popular in the late 18th century, the “it-narrative.” These were accounts of objects circulating in the structures of emergent industrialized capitalist markets written in the first-person from the perspective of the objects. It Narratives the exhibition updates this concept for the 21st century by presenting artists’ projects that track the movement of objects online and by mail, taking measure of the physical and emotional experiences of time and distance inherent to these networks.

// I hope to see this show on my way to/from Boston on the 25th/26th... will post more images then.

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Disobedient Objects Exhibition Catalogcat2014-09-04T02:38:12Z2014-09-04T01:59:20Ztag:microrevolt.org,2014:/reblog//1.8102014-09-04T01:59:20Z Disobedient Objects is about out-designing authority. It explores the material culture of radical change and protest - from objects familiar to many, such as banners or posters, to the more militant, cunning or technologically cutting-edge, including lock-ons, book-blocs and...

Disobedient Objects is about out-designing authority. It explores the material culture of radical change and protest - from objects familiar to many, such as banners or posters, to the more militant, cunning or technologically cutting-edge, including lock-ons, book-blocs and activist robots. Where previous social movement histories have focused on large-scale events, strategies or biographies, this book - and the exhibition it accompanies - shows how objects themselves can be revolutionary. Focusing on social movements since 1980, the book features an introductory essay by the curators examining the history of objects in protest and activism, followed by six essays that look at particular objects, and the contexts in which they are used. Interspersed throughout are images of the objects at work, along with a selection of how-tos covering specific objects from a design perspective. This is a manifesto for experimental alternative design, showing how objects can define encounters and inspire activists. Accompanies the V&A exhibition Disobedient Objects, 26 July 2014 to 1 February 2015.

The above image is sourced from this webpage that has much better images of the Disobedient Objects catalog and exhibition design that I posted in July from my mobile phone.

Jonathan Barnbrook and Marwan Kaabour will be speaking at the London Design Festival alongside V&A designer Line Lune, to discuss how they approached design the exhibition design. 18 September, Lydia and Manfred Gorvy Lecture Theatre

Jonathan Barnbrook will be taking part in an international conference exploring the challenges in archiving and curating objects and artefacts of recent and historical political conflict. 8 November, Seminar Room Three, V&A Museum

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Disobedient Objects at the V&Acat2014-09-04T01:50:30Z2014-07-24T19:03:13Ztag:microrevolt.org,2014:/reblog//1.8092014-07-24T19:03:13Z Disobedient Objects 26 July 2014 - 1 February 2015 Curated by Catherine Flood and Gavin Grindon From a Suffragette tea service to protest robots, this exhibition is the first to examine the powerful role of objects in movements for...

From a Suffragette tea service to protest robots, this exhibition is the first to examine the powerful role of objects in movements for social change. It demonstrates how political activism drives a wealth of design ingenuity and collective creativity that defy standard definitions of art and design. Disobedient Objects focuses on the period from the late 1970s to now, a time that has brought new technologies and political challenges. On display are arts of rebellion from around the world that illuminate the role of making in grassroots movements for social change: finely woven banners; defaced currency; changing designs for barricades and blockades; political video games; an inflatable general assembly to facilitate consensus decision-making; experimental activist-bicycles; and textiles bearing witness to political murders.

// These are the images I was able to take with my phone during the week of the opening in London. Please note all Nike Blanket Petition participants-- all of your names are on the wall below the quilt. Admission is FREE and open now through February 1.

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Environmentally Conscious Future Not Actually Planned for Reed Collegecat2014-05-24T15:35:31Z2014-05-24T15:34:01Ztag:microrevolt.org,2014:/reblog//1.8062014-05-24T15:34:01ZMay 20, 2014 - Portland, Oregon. Graduating Reed College students and their parents gave a standing ovation Monday to an announcement by their commencement speaker that the college had decided to divest from fossil fuels. But the President and Chair...
May 20, 2014 - Portland, Oregon. Graduating Reed College students and their parents gave a standing ovation Monday to an announcement by their commencement speaker that the college had decided to divest from fossil fuels.

But the President and Chair of the Board of Trustees, who were sitting onstage with the speaker, quietly wrung their hands—because the announcement was a hoax, and the board had recently decided exactly the opposite.

The college probably should have seen it coming. The commencement speaker was Igor Vamos, also known as Mike Bonanno of the Yes Men, an activist organization known for impersonating corporation officials and making fake announcements about socially responsible action. During Bonanno’s congratulatory speech to the class of 2014, he highlighted climate change as the defining issue of our time, encouraging graduates to de-normalize the status quo.

“The planet is in your hands, and if we’re going to save it we need everyone to do everything that they can. This is a revolution,” said Bonanno.

Bonanno then went on to leak the false news: “Over a delicious scone and cup of coffee with President Kroger, I was very, very pleased to learn that the board of trustees of Reed College has just now decided to divest the school’s $500 million endowment from fossil fuels.” The crowd of students, faculty, and parents cheered wildly. Video

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“I was amused that they didn’t immediately correcmt the announcement. It must have seemed daunting to tell the truth after all those parents and graduates cheered for divestment,” said Bonanno.

Immediately following the announcement, Reed students and family in attendance at the commencement tweeted and spread the news through the hashtag #divestreed. The news was published on a mock Reed website. Local and national news sources, including the Portland Tribune, published the news as real.

Reed’s public relations quickly responded to the false release with their own version of the events, but not before the Yes Men sent yet another press release, also feigning to be from the Reed administration, and explaining why divestment is still not a reality: “Reed College maintains the same position on investing it has held since it refused to divest from apartheid South Africa. Then, as now, the mission of the College requires that providing a high quality education should be prioritized above questions of a social or moral nature,” read a quote falsely attributed to Reed President John Kroger.

The Yes Men launched this action following a long student-run campaign that has demanded divestment from the 200 dirtiest fossil fuel companies. Reed has a $500 million endowment, tens of millions of which are invested in fossil fuels corporations. The Reed Board of Trustees and President Kroger listened ceremonially to students’ demands at several meetings, but have not made a single commitment to change the school’s investment strategies. The administration has relied on arguments about political neutrality and academic freedom to dismiss divestment.

“It’s important to remember that there’s nothing sustainable about investing millions of dollars in fossil fuel extraction," said Austin Weisgrau, a current Reed student and member of Fossil Free Reed. "It’s profit over ethics. Colleges like Reed issue a constant stream of greenwashed branding, and it’s the civic responsibility of the student to set the record straight.”

On a national scale, divestment from fossil fuels is a growing movement with both Stanford University and Pitzer College recently announcing their own divestment from fossil fuels.

Threewalls is honored to present Fearful Symmetries, the first retrospective exhibition of the influential feminist artist, Faith Wilding. Widely known as a performance artist, Wilding was a key figure in the formation of the first Feminist Art Program in Fresno in 1970, and at Cal Arts in 1971. She was a major contributor to the now historical, month-long collaborative feminist installation Womanhouse, sited in an abandoned mansion in Los Angeles in 1972, where she performed her highly celebrated work Waiting. more